By Yim Sok Sophors

Wind pump handover to communities in Svay Rieng

Svay Rieng: On March 10, 2015, a meeting organised to hand over 2 wind pumps to communities in Kampong Chamlang commune and Sangkat Chek in Svay Rieng province. Windpump management committees, members of windpump user groups, a village chief, commune Councillor and CFAP (including director and agriculture advisor), and staff of SNV’s climate-smart agriculture project participated in the meeting.

Windpump

windpump handover video clip

It is to notice that, under the climate-smart agriculture project, 2 windpumps were installed for farmers. Farmers used the wind pump to pump water from the nearby natural water reservoir to irrigate their rice field, some farmers also applied vegetable growing in the dry season.

Through the use of windpump, farmers can save at least 50% of total expense on diesel, but they need to maintain the windpump regularly.

To be sustained, some key points need to be considered:

windpump management committees need to have sufficient capacity to manage and operate their groups (e.g. agricultural production planning, water distribution, water fee collection, conflict resolution, etc.)

both windpump management committee and group members need to have strong ownership and participation in sustainable use and maintenance of the wind pump;

local repairers are available for maintenance and repairing of the windpump in the case of minor repairing is needed. Local repairers should be paid for their work;

good communication between user groups and wind pump suppliers in case of the spare part or big repairing is needed;

support from local authorities (village chief, commune Councillor…) is needed.